The Escapist
by mychemicalbitchbot
Summary: All Alec ever wanted to do was get out.


**I may be without internet for a great while, and this is something for you in case I don't get to update BLIND before I leave. Sorry. I've got to go, guys.  
**

I didn't think that they really understood. They didn't grasp the concept, but they were trying so hard. Like fish hung up on a line out of water, desperate to stay alive. They just couldn't understand and it made me happy. They'd never really get it.

I didn't tell them it was me in some sort of grand swooping gesture, but I was sure they were figuring it out. I was the one who had come back to the institute covered in bruises and blood (and bite marks), telling them that a den of demons had been discovered. Not too many, just enough for the three of them to kill. I told them there were only three or four, but they'd been too powerful for me to win. According to my story, I was lucky to be alive and injured much worse than I actually was, unable to return to the field immediately, even with an _iratze. _

When they got there, they'd realize that there were more demons than my claim, that Sebastian was waiting for them in a way he'd promised to never wait for me. He was waiting to kill them. Jace and Clary deserved it, they wanted nothing more than the part-demon's death. Isabelle was more of an unfortunate loss, but Sebastian cared little for Shadowhunter lives anyway. It was the way he'd grown up. I had seen how cruel the self-proclaimed Holy Race could be, and I had to think that maybe they, as a group, did deserve to be massacred. I understood it. But then, I loved Sebastian. I'd always try to understand.

I'd let him kill my _parabatai,_ my brother. He'd kill my sister, and his sister. I'd given him everything I could. I loved him. I really did.

I packed a bag full of clothes and filled a duffel bag full of weapons. Mom asked where I was going. Magnus is letting me move in, I told her. She never even knew we broke up. She hugged me, and told me I was still expected 'home' at the institute often. I knew I wouldn't be returning. But still, I lied.

I'd gotten so used to lying, my head was swirling with all of the words that I couldn't remember the reality of. My head was strange. It was like a party mix; when you stuck your hand in, tried your luck, you could never really predict what you would get and in what quantities. But that was okay, that was how I liked it. It made me unpredictable; it made me a madman. It made it easier to be cruel. But remorse had been in short supply for a while, as if I'd run out. There was an empty room somewhere in my mind filled with empty boxes of the stuff. My ability to care was lacking somewhat.

So I left the Institute for what was probably the last time (while alive anyway) with a smile on my face. I found the hole in the wall, the secret, that Sebastian had told me about what seemed like ages ago. I climbed through it, to the house that I'd been gradually been moving into. It wasn't too big, but it wasn't small, either. There was a kitchen and a dining room, a large bedroom, a training room, and two offices, one Sebastian used for the extermination of Shadowhunters and one he used for... well, for me. When I did something wrong. I kept away from that room when I could, because bad things happened there. Things I didn't like.

I went to the bedroom, leaving my bag of clothes on the slightly ruffled bed. I went to the training room, and put the weapons away in an order I knew Sebastian kept. He liked it when things like this were logical, made sense. After, I practiced with my bow. It gave me an opportunity to think about hunting, about the shadowhunters I'd strike down and the events happening with Sebastian. I wondered if he'd killed them yet. I hoped he didn't get any injuries. I didn't like seeing him hurt.

He only hit me and cut me today because he had to, for it to be convincing. He hurt me so much that an_ iratze_ would take a few minutes to heal me up and I could fake the rest. He had to, that's why he did it. I understood that. I loved him.

That's all I knew, even when he sent me back to the institute. He knew I'd die, that they'd kill me. I knew it, too. But it was okay. I watched my mother cry as the light drained from my eyes. I was in the middle of a Clave meeting, he'd had me walk right in. In a moment, after a lapse in which they forgot I was a traitor, I had too many weapons pointed at me. But the only one that mattered was the one I held, the knife he'd given me. I was a demonstration, with a blade sunk into my stomach. This was what he could do to shadowhunters. He hated using me for this, he loved me, but he had to. I would stir them the most, he said. I was perfect for it. He loved me, and that was all that mattered.

To be loved; it was all I'd ever wanted. He gave it to me with the knowledge that he'd someday be a great leader in such a dark world. In a world where no one understood, he'd lead them out of the dark.


End file.
